Pacific Coast Highway - 27th March

In the morning, we walked from our motel (shown below) over to the McDonalds right next door (with me feeling like a Zombie) for breakfast.

We then set off on our day's journey to Monterey, along the Pacific Coast Highway. The idea was that we'd just stop off wherever we felt like along the way. We drove for quite along time to start with though, and I slept on and off till about 11am and felt much better.

Just past San Simeon, we stopped off at a seal beach - there were loads of them sprawled long the beach for a good few hundred metres. I think they look a bit creepy really - like dead bodies!

The weather was sunny, but quite windy, and at various places along the way quite a bit of sea mist was coming in.

We stopped off briefly at a few more places, taking in the gorgeous views from the cliffs overlooking the coast line. We had bagels and stuff for lunch in the car.

Very typical scenery for the day.

At one place by the side of the road which we pulled into, loads of squirrels (and birds) came close, and we had the most wonderful time feeding them bits of bagel! I just sat and took millions of photos of the kids - it felt like a scene from a Disney film, with all the friendly animals!

I put a bit of bagel on my shorts and carried on taking pictures!

More of the gorgeous scenery along the way.

Just before Big Sur we stopped off at the Julia Pfieffer Burns State Park. We got chatting with some kids from Santa Monica, then walked along a little trail to outlooks over a cove with a waterfall, and some lovely shore line. There used to be a house built there.

We had a small walk through some woods nearby, and explored a little water wheel cabin, then carried on.

After driving through Big Sur, we stopped off at the beach which Scott and I went to last time we were here (right after we'd done our very long walk up a massive hill!) There was a wedding going on! I felt a bit sad for them really, because it had got a bit cold and grey by then

The waves were pretty powerful, and there was a warning sign saying how many people had drowned at this beach! No paddling this time!

We got to our Ramada Inn in Monterey at about 6pm, and had tea in a nearby diner.

We were really pleased with the Ramada Inn! Lucy, Harry and I had a lovely room downstairs, and Scott, Tom and Jack had one upstairs. We got extra beds put in the rooms, then hit the pool! I'd felt too tired with the bother of going in, but Lucy, Tom and Harry did, and then the lure of the hot tub next to the pool won me over and I soon revived! It was just wonderful - being lovely and warm in the night air, watching darkness fall, the kids happy, and just enjoying AMERICA!